[hker]

I agree that:

* each country has their own history and trajectory, including China, its neighbors (Japan, Taiwan, etc.), or others.

* China has much to gain from changing the world order.

But, I speculate that:

* a transition of power from a US dominated world order to a bipolar (or China dominated) world order would be chaotic and likely non-peacful, given the history of the bipolar world order of the Cold War with lots of proxy wars.

* hence the world has much to lose from such a transition of power: this is essentially the one-party stability argument of CCP applied to the world, because the world institution inherently lacks the peaceful transition of power that democratic countries have—the result will be more chaotic, and likely violent, than what US is having now.

I agree with your objections to cargo cult and magical thinking, and thus I support public discourse sans government censorship or unreasonable moderation, to find out why things are the way they are.

I love the discussion we are having now.

[Bakary]

I must admit I have no idea at all what will happen when it comes down to it (nor does anyone, let's be real). I can't say I reject your vision outright, but I tend to believe that multipolar worlds (excluding bipolar) are more stable and in this case I do not believe it will only be China and the US in the game. Your comparison between the domestic situation in China and the world order is something I had never considered before.

But like you said it's fun to speculate about these things. Online discussion may lead to a lot of... issues but it also allows us to discuss intense topics where we might not otherwise be able to.